


thus in our shallow graves

by tomato_greens



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Dubious Cure-Related Ethics, Dubious Telepathic Ethics, Ethics, Gen, Homophobia, M/M, Religious Zealotry, Suicide, disturbing imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-16
Updated: 2012-06-16
Packaged: 2017-11-07 21:11:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/435507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomato_greens/pseuds/tomato_greens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times they didn't make it work, and one time they did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	thus in our shallow graves

**Author's Note:**

> Originally on the kink meme [here](http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/8700.html?thread=18743036#t18743036).

I. 

They've won, is the thing, won for good, and even Logan ground out a rusty _Ding dong, the motherfucker's dead_ to everyone’s perpetual delight and Rogue’s sneaky camcorder, but Professor X isn't celebrating––he'd secluded himself upstairs as soon as they'd gotten back to the mansion, waving everyone ahead of him. “Go on, enjoy yourselves,” he’d said, smiling indulgently, looking weirdly subdued. “I’m just very tired.” 

So the party’s on, but Jean finds herself with a headache halfway through and disentangles herself from Scott, kisses him on the cheek. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she says, smiling at him, and he squeezes her fingers, understandingly. He doesn’t doesn’t really get it––the way her skull pounds after a strenuous fight, the pain descending with lightning fury––but he’s thoughtful, he tries. She’s wending her way up the stairs when a sudden, stark spike of loss flashes through the back of her brain, and she knows instantly that it’s the Professor, that his shields flared out of control for that second, that something is terribly wrong.

She finds him in his bedroom, the door ajar, still in his chair. His face is hidden in one of his hands, and though he’s not moving, the distinct mental flavor of grief is wreathed around him. “Come in,” he calls, soft, and his voice his steady. “Come in, my dear.”

She opens the door a little wider and walks to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. Her headache fades away to nothing––how like him. “Are you all right?” she asks.

“Yes,” says the Professor, his voice streaked through with pain. He does sound very tired, at least. “Oh yes, I’m all right. I’ll be all right.”

Jean doesn’t know quite what to do––loss has always made a terrible sense to her, even before she’d experienced any of her own, but she cannot reconcile the death of this evil man with the Professor before her. 

“He wasn’t evil,” Professor X says, and she suddenly notices what he’s got clutched in his other hand––a scrap of distinctive, silken fabric, the only remnant now left of Magneto’s cape; they had burnt the body so it couldn’t be martyred to the cause. “Only lost.” 

_And lost now to me forever_ , Jean thinks she hears, faintly, but to that she has no answer.

 

II.

Emma’s always had a taste for theatrics, but even she’s had enough––“Jesus, Erik,” she hisses, as he watches Charles sidearm his way to the tray of food that’s been left for him, “you should leave the poor man be.”

“He’s no simple man,” Erik always says back, implacable, cold-eyed, alien. “He’s a mutant. And so he must pay for his crimes, and for all belonging to those he led.”

In the end Erik’s even more of a wacko than Shaw was, but by the time she’d figured it out it was too late. Emma has made her peace with that––she’s diamond-hard, after all, and Erik but flesh and blood––but it turns out Charles hasn’t; one morning they discover him, belt around his neck, bloated, the note clutched in his fist. The coroner tells Erik it was a quick death, but Emma knows it wasn’t, that he suffocated, that it was slow and painful. 

_I’ll always remember you as the better man,_ the note reads, _but I wasn’t made to crawl._

Erik folds the note carefully and places it in his breast pocket. He takes his helmet off for exactly one minute, in grief, in belated respect. Emma can feel the furious despair from where she stands, and she’s not even reaching; the note was signed _Yours_.

“In the morning, we move out,” Erik tells her, and puts the helmet back on his head.

 

III.

“It’s really the most astounding find of the century,” Dr. Jeanne Gray babbles to the camera, her hair bright red in the sunlight, her enthusiasm practically contagious. Just out of focus, her assistant Scott is chipping carefully away at some treasure stuck in the mud. “A burial like this! It’s what we’ve been dreaming of.”

The two figures slowly emerge, E-8L2 and C-9FX, or Erik and Charles for convenience’s sake––both male and with clear signs of early expressions of the mutant genome present in the shape of the skull, they’ve been placed in traditional combat positions, facing each other, hands crossed at the wrist. Oddly, their feet are also touching, a pose usually reserved for married couples.

“We think they must have been enemies; they both clearly died in battle,” Dr. Gray surmises, shrugging eloquently and thus capturing the hearts of The History Channel’s 18-49 target group. “It’s possible they were put into an ambiguous position in order to shame one of them, most likely Erik, as he’s on the left, where the woman was usually placed. Or it’s possible that they were lovers and given a warrior’s burial to indicate that they were respected anyway. We may never know.”

Dr. Gray gets another episode on The History Channel and then her own show on National Geographic; Erik and Charles are relocated to various natural history museums before settling in the Upper West Side, their feet and hands forever entangled, a fight or a caress, unmoved.

 

IV.

Angel meets Erik two months into her stint as a volunteer for Meals On Wheels. He’s a gaunt, graying man in a wheelchair who insists on playing chess with her, has sincerely refused to eat unless she’ll take her inevitably poor and torturously slow turn.

“It’s far too boring if I do it myself,” he explains. “And I need to play while the old memory’s still got some life in it left.”

Once she shows up a little earlier than expected, surprises another older gentleman, bald, who’s holding onto Erik’s hand.

“Oh,” Angel says, shy. “Sorry, I didn’t know Erik had company––I’ll go wait.”

“No, don’t,” the man says, “it’s fine. Erik, it’s time for me to go, all right?”

Erik makes a broken, rusty sound, and brings a shaking hand up to the side of the other man’s face. “I don’t want you to,” he says, like it’s ripped out of him, “I always remember worse after you leave,” and the other man’s face just––falls, his eyes shut tight.

“I know, darling,” he whispers, tucking his face in close, “I’ll love you always, you glorious creature, I wish you could have known that any other way.”

 

V. 

There’s a new, better Cure, and then another one, more efficient, longer-lasting, the weapon of his nightmares. Magneto gets hit unexpectedly and goes down, hard, and when he comes to everything he’s ever known, everything he’s ever loved, is leaving.

“No hard feelings,” Mystique says, looking down at him, her face impassive. “I get that you still care. But Erik––” and he winces at it, the way she hasn’t called him Erik since she found out Charles would never walk again––“there isn’t any room for tourists, and now that you’re human, it’s all you can be.”

Human. The word tastes like dust in his mouth, like ashes, like death; but then death has been Erik’s lifelong companion. When he meets Reverend Stryker, his zealotry is palpable, and Erik is just itching for a cause.

The dart gun isn’t as loud as a regular gun and the metal no longer sings in his hands, but that’s all right––one of Erik’s strengths has always been the purity of his belief. Charles cries out and claps a hand to his neck, then slumps in his chair. Perfection.

 

(VI.

The first thing you learn when you start at Xavier Academy is not to steal the last of the Froot Loops, because Professor X probably won’t let Logan kill you, but it will still be one of the most terrifying experiences of your short life.

The second thing you learn is that Professor X and Magneto are together––you know, _together_. Your mother would probably have something to say about it, or at least, Jesus would, and Mom is pretty good at speaking for him, but it’s not like they’re really obvious about it or anything, and nobody else seems to think it’s wrong, so maybe just like you’re allowed to make mistakes and laugh or cry too loudly and you don’t have to pray your soul up to heaven every night in case you die while you’re asleep, they’re allowed to just––be. 

The third thing you learn is that, though Professor X is nicer in the day, Magneto’s the one you trust––neither of you sleep very often, and he’s awfully good at making hot chocolate. Sometimes he’ll even move the saucepan around just so you can watch it fly.)


End file.
